Geophysical Exploration of the Buraco da Velha Deposit (RO, Brazil)

Vinicius Hector Abud Louro, Vanessa Biondo Ribeiro, Marta Silvia Maria Mantovani, IAG-USP
Copyright 2013, SBGf - Sociedade Brasileira de Geofsica
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This paper was prepared for presentation during the 13 International Congress of the
Brazilian Geophysical Society held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, August 26-29, 2013.
Contents of this paper were reviewed by the Technical Committee of the 13th
International Congress of the Brazilian Geophysical Society and do not necessarily
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____________________________________________________________________

Abstract
Near the Alto Alegre dos Parecis city is located the
Buraco da Velha copper deposit. This deposit reveals
magnetic and radiometric anomalies, representing a
considerable amount of ferromagnetic minerals in its
structure and a concentration of radiometric elements
in shallow depths. These behaviors permitted the
geophysical study of the deposit through the
magnetic and gammaspectrometric methods. This
study, allied to previous geological works, indicated
the overall spatial distribution of the magnetic and
radiometric minerals/elements, an approximation of
the age of the source of the magnetic anomaly and
the area of hydrothermalization in which can be found
the mineralized copper. This information can be
crucial for the local mining industry, for an enhanced
and more effective copper exploitation.

indicating a possible origin and evolution compatible to a

complete Wilson cycle (Rizzotto, 1999).
Near the Alto Alegre dos Parecis city lies the Buraco da
Velha deposit (BVD). This deposit presents occurrences
of copper, limestone and manganese at south of the
major gold and copper known district of the state.
In 2006, the Brazilian Geological Service (former
Company of Mineral Resources Researches - CPRM)
performed
an
airborne
magnetic
and
gammaspectrometric survey over the southeast
Rondnia. This survey revealed in the BVD location a
magnetic anomaly with evidences of significant
remanence. Its location corroborates with a radiometric
distribution that can be associated to a hydrothermal
alteration.
The inversion of the magnetic anomaly revealed an
elongated model in the E-W direction and its susceptibility
distribution, along the indirectly calculated remanence,
allowed estimating its crystallization at 123 4 Ma.
The geophysical information, bound to the geological,
indicates a promising scenario for the mineral exploration,
revealing the horizontal and top limits of the probable
magmatic intrusion and the extension of the hydrothermal
alteration associated to the percolation of its fluids. The
knowledge of these characteristics may direct to a more
efficient exploitation of the target minerals.

Introduction
The Rondnia state (Brazil) has been arousing the
interest of mining companies, due the increasing
discoveries of gold, copper and Platinum Group Elements
(PGE) deposits in recent years. The southeast portion of
this state reveals a complex structural scenario marked
by several compressional and distentional events,

Geological Context
The BVD is located in the northern Colorado Graben,
where it makes frontier with the Nova Brasilndia Terrain
(Fig. 01; Dardenne et al, 2005). The first is the southern
extension of the Parecis Basin in the Rondnia state,

Fig. 01 Southeast Rondnia geological framework (modified from Dardenne et al., 2005).

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being identified in this region as conglomerates, dolomitic

limestone, sandstones and claystones, from the
granodioritic basement to the surface. Dardenne et al.
(2005) links the copper mineralization to the dolomitic
limestone, in strata-bound occurrences. The same
authors date this sequence from 180 Ma to 100Ma.
The more ancient Nova Brasilndia Terrain (aprox. 1100
Ma; Rizzotto, 1999), is described as a meta-plutonicsedimentary sequence of varied metamorphosed
lithologies, due its complex tectonic evolution comporting
a complete Wilson Cycle.

efficiently hidrothermalized zones. The Fig. 02-C presents

the F Factor map of BVD. This map shows high values for
the same central and west zone of the deposit, what can
be interpreted as a target for mineral exploration due the
known association of copper mineralization with
hydrothermal environments.

The known copper mineralization is attributed to a mixing

of hot and cold fluids from different sources. Dardenne et
al. (2005) indicate that the cold fluids are originated from
a hydration of sediments due the presence of paleoocean. These authors also infer the origin of the hot fluids
as from the basal portion of the Colorado Graben,
however without clear evidences.
Radiometric Method
The radioactive elements disintegration releases energy
through the emission of alpha () and beta () particles
and gamma () radiation. This process accrues from the
atoms nuclei instability in natural conditions.
The main sources of gamma radiation detected in the
Earths surface comes from the natural disintegration of
40
the potassium ( K), and the elements from the uranium
238
232
( U) and thorium ( Th) series present in the rocks.
Several factors influence the gammaspectrometric signal,
attenuating it. The main is the absorption of the energy by
the own layer of rock or soil above the source limiting the
reach of airborne gammaspectrometric data to the first 30
to 40 centimeters depth. Other factors also influence the
airborne gathered signal attenuating or interfering in it, as
the local vegetation, the soil humidity, thermal inversion
phenomenon, topographic variation and directional
effects.

The Buraco da Velha Deposit radiometric data showed

two distinct distributions of the radiometric elements: the
eastern portion presents high values of the three
elements interspersed to Th and U predominance. This
behavior is generally observed in the region at north to
the BVD anomaly and can be associated to the superficial
meta-volcano-sedimentary lithology from the Nova
Brasilndia Terrain (Fig. 02-A).
The southern region of the Fig. 02-A indicate two more
radiometric domains, in the southwest and south having a
high concentration of the three elements with tendencies
to predominance of K and Th. As it is possible to observe
in Fig. 02-B, this characteristic is associated to a
topographic depression, which can be interpreted as a
trap for the eroded/weathered sediments from rocks in
higher topographies around the depression.
The central and western portion reveals a concentration
of K and U, prevailing over the Th. The F factor, proposed
by Efimov (1978, apud Gnojek and Prichystal, 1985),
relates the concentrations of U and Th with the Ks. Biondi
et al. (2001) affirm that this normalization indicates

Fig. 02 (A) Radiometric ternary map of BVD; (B) Surface map

of the regional topography around BVD; (C) F factor map of BVD.
The black contour refers to the possible borders of the source of
the BVD anomaly.

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LOURO, RIBEIRO & MANTOVANI

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Magnetic Method

The magnetic method is based on the contrast of

magnetic susceptibility of a body and its environment.
Geologically this contrast may occur between an intrusion
and its host-rock, for an example.
The values obtained by the airborne collected data

represent the vector sum (Total Magnetization,

) of the

components of the induced ( ) and the remanent (

)
magnetizations:

=
+

The BVD is located at low magnetic latitudes, what

implies instabilities to the use of several magnetic
processing techniques. Furthermore, the magnetic
anomaly related to the deposit also shows evidences that
the source of the signal may contain a significant
remanent magnetization (Fig. 03). These evidences
indicate the need of the use of techniques that have either
small or no dependence of the magnetization direction.

Fig. 04 Amplitude of the Analytic Signal of BVD.

The Fig. 04 shows a contrast marked in black contour that

can be related with a deeper structure, possibly the main
body. The smaller peaks of higher amplitudes (in red and
pink, inside the black contour) may be linked to shallower
bodies related to a hidrothermalization process.
Depth Estimative
The depth estimative of the magnetic sources was
provided by the Euler Deconvolution (Fig. 05; Reid et al.,
1990). This technique comes from the Eulers
homogeneous differential equation:
( 0 )

+ ( 0 )
+ ( 0 )
= ( )

being x0, y0 and z0 the magnetic signal sources

coordinates, M is the magnetic anomaly, is the
structural index and R is the total field regional value.

Fig. 03 Residual magnetic field of the Buraco da Velha deposit.

Borders Delimitation
The lateral delimitation of the BVDs source was obtained
by the Amplitude of the Analytic Signal (AAS; Roest et al.,
1992) that is defined by the equation:
2
2
2
2
= + +

where M is the magnetic anomaly field and x, y and z

are the derivatives in x, y and z directions.
The AAS showed an E-W structure, following the direction
of the normal faulting that separates the Nova Brasilndia
Terrain and the Colorado Graben (Fig. 04). This also may
indicate a possible structural control for the magma
emplacement that resulted in the source of the magnetic
signal.

Fig. 05 AAS map with the estimated depths from the Euler
Deconvolution of the BVD anomaly.

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GEOPHYSICAL EXPLORATION OF THE BURACO DA VELHA DEPOSIT

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The Euler Deconvolution revealed a possible magmatic

intrusion with its topmost part varying from 100 to 400
meters

Estimative of Directions of Total Magnetization

The same directions of total magnetic field permitted to

successfully reduce to the magnetic equator (Fig. 06-B)
confirming the results.

In cases of significant magnetic remanence, especially in

locations inside the range of the South Atlantic Anomaly,
the estimative of the components of the total magnetic
field is crucial for a successful inversion of the magnetic
data. So it was used the MaxiMin technique of reduction
to the magnetic pole (RTP) from Fedi et al. (1994), for a
first approach of the directions of inclination and
declination of the total magnetic field, simulating the
anomaly in the vertical field of the magnetic pole.
The MaxiMin technique selects randomly 30 pairs of
inclination and declination and it performs a RTP filtering
with each one. The worst reduction is then discarded and
the process is reinitiated until the values of the pairs
inclination/declination do not exceed a pre-defined
reliability value. This value must be small enough to does
not permit a proper reduction to the pole and large
enough to allow the convergence in the n-defined
iterations. The value of reliability and number of iterations
used were 2 and 4000, respectively.

The low latitudes where the BVD anomaly is found make

the RTP filtering unstable. However the resultant pair of
the MaxiMin technique indicated approximately the total
magnetization inclination and declination. This pair, when
used in an RTP algorithm that considers the low latitudes
effects as the one from Grant and Dodds (1972 apud
Mcleod et al., 1993), may filter the anomaly successfully
with slight adjustments to the angles of inclination and
declination. This RTP filter is given by the relation:
() =

[sin() cos() . cos( )]2

[sin2 () + cos 2() . cos 2( )]. [sin2 () + cos 2() . cos 2( )]

where is the wavenumber direction, I is the inclination,

D is the declination and Ia is the inclination for amplitude
correction to stabilize the RTP filtering at low latitudes.
The regional induced inclination and declination were
defined through the International Geomagnetic Reference
Field (IGRF), being -3.9 and -11.9 respectively. The
MaxiMin technique indicated an inclination of 25.5 and a
declination of 2.8. This pair however did not reduce the
anomaly properly, resulting in a distortion of the field
instead a vertical signal.
When applied the RTP filter from Grant and Dodds
(1972), attempting small variations for the inclination and
declination angles, it was possible to achieve a filtering
resulting in a vertical representation of the anomaly, with
an inclination of 16 and a declination of -12 (Fig. 06-A).
In order to confirm the RTP results it was calculated the
reduction to the magnetic equator through the algorithm
of Grant and Dodds (1972), similarly to the RTP:
() =

[sin() cos() . cos( )]2 . [ cos 2( )]

[sin2 () + cos 2() . cos 2( )]. [sin2 () + cos 2() . cos 2( )]

Fig. 06 (A) Reduction to the magnetic pole of the BVD

anomaly; (B) Reduction to the magnetic Equator of the BVD
anomaly.

Inversion
The borders and depths estimation gave information
about the spatial distribution of the ferromagnetic minerals
of the BVD. The region where the BVD in inserted is
known as the main concentration of mafic and ultramafic
intrusions of the Rondnia state (Rizzotto, 1999)
especially gabbroic lithologies. Counting with the average
magnetic susceptibility for this lithology available in the
accessible literature, it was possible to compose an initial
model. It was also applied to the synthetic initial model
the directions of the induced magnetic field (IGRF) and
the angles of inclination and declination of the total
magnetic field.

Thirteenth International Congress of the Brazilian Geophysical Society

LOURO, RIBEIRO & MANTOVANI

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The magnetic data was inverted with the algorithm from Li

and Oldenburg (1996). This algorithm considers the
magnetization for the i-th cell (Ji) as:
= 0
being the magnetic susceptibility for the i-th cell and
0 the Earth magnetic field for its position.
The objective function to be minimized by the algorithm is:

indicated a possible intrusion without evidences of

outcropping. The regional geology presents several
gabbroic intrusions at north of BVD. Telford et al. (1990)
present a magnetic susceptibility range from 0.3 to 0.9.
The magnetic field from the inverted model showed an
approximated solution for the BVD anomaly. This field
showed a good resemblance to the real data and it was
confirmed by the histogram analysis of residues (Fig. 08).

= +

where is the adjustment function, given by:

2

Being
the gathered data from the survey, the
sensitivity matrix, the susceptibility vector and is the
diagonal matrix for which the i-th element is:
=

being the standard deviation from the i-th data.

Finally, is the regularization function given by:

() = {(). [() 0 ]}2

Fig. 08 Histogram distribution of the residue.

(). [() 0 ]
+

(). [() 0 ]
+

(). [() 0 ]

with s, x, y and z being the adjustable coefficients

related to the importance of the components of the
regularization function; ws, wx, wy and wz are spatially
depending weighing functions. More information is
available in Li and Oldenburg (1996).
The inverted model revealed an E-W elongated structure
with lateral bounds and depths that corroborated with the
results of previous magnetic techniques presented in this
study (Fig. 07). The susceptibility contrast of 0.04

Remanence Estimation
Once known the susceptibility distribution, the induced
magnetization (through the IGRF) and the angles of
inclination and declination of the total magnetization, it is
possible to make a final modeling process to achieve the
intensity of the total magnetization.
It was attributed to the distribution of susceptibility the
known induced and total magnetization components. The
unknown component at this stage is the intensity of the
total magnetization, which was estimated by a forward
modeling with the spatial parameters and the known
components of magnetization fixed, varying the intensity
until it is achieved an acceptable approximation from the
modeled and real magnetic fields.
This estimation permitted, by vector subtraction of the
induced and total magnetizations, to indicate the apparent
remanence of the BVD anomaly, with inclination of 22.7,
declination of 168.0 and intensity of 42.2 A/m.

Fig. 07 Perspective view of the 3D inversion of the BVD magnetic data with: (A) N-S and E-W cuts; and (B) the distribution of
susceptibilities of values 0.4 or higher (in S.I.).

Thirteenth International Congress of the Brazilian Geophysical Society

GEOPHYSICAL EXPLORATION OF THE BURACO DA VELHA DEPOSIT

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Virtual Paleopole and Dating

Acknowledgments

The estimation of the remanence of the source of the

BVD anomaly allowed the calculation of its virtual
paleopole (VPP) through the relations:
tan() = 2. tan()

sin( ) = sin( ) . sin() + cos() . cos()

being I and D the inclination and declination respectively,

the paleolatitude of the source of the anomaly, the
present latitude of the source of the anomaly and is the
latitude of the paleopole. The paleopole longitude ( )
depends on a relation among , and , in which if:
sin() sin( ) . sin( )

Then:

sin( ) =

Else:

cos() . sin()
cos( )

sin(180 + ) =

cos() . sin()
cos( )

In the BVD anomaly, the calculated VPP coordinates (XX,

YY) can be compared to prior paleomagnetic studies and
indirectly dated (Cordani and Shukowsky, 2009). In BVD
case, the VPP coordinates (78.3S, 28.2E) accorded with
the data from Menda (1978), that dated through K-Ar
sources in South America with this specific VPP
coordinates to 123 4 Ma.
Conclusions
The BVD is a recently discovered copper deposit in the
southeast Rondnia state. Its magnetic data revealed a
reverse polarity anomaly indicating presence of
remanence.
The depths estimated for the top of the anomaly varies
mainly from 100 to 400 meters. These depths also give
margin for a metallogenic analysis, based on the
magnetic and radiometric data, and previous works. The
radiometric data showed an element distribution in the
western portion of the magnetic anomaly relatable to
hydrothermalized environments. The known copper
deposit may be linked to hydrothermal processes of
magmatic and meteoric fluid mixing in these depths.
It was performed an inversion of magnetic data, indicating
an elongated source in E-W direction, permitting the
inference that the magma injection was simultaneously
favored and restrained by structural control with the
normal faulting between the Colorado Graben (Parecis
Basin) and the Nova Brasilndia Terrain.
Indirectly, it was possible to estimate the age of the
intrusion through the magnetic data, locating its insertion
in the upper crust in 123 4 Ma.
The presented results, allied to a possible borehole data
to confirmation, are of great value for the mineral
exploitation, delimiting the area and calculating the
exploratory potential for this target, defining it as
economically viable or not.

Special thanks for the CPRM for providing the data used
in the study and the CNPq for the grant of the PhD
scholarships to the first two authors.
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Thirteenth International Congress of the Brazilian Geophysical Society